How to retrieve 2D array from xml string resource for Android?

Question

Suppose I have stored a 2 dimensional array in android resource as shown below. How can I get them in a java collection like Arraylist?

<resources>
<string-array name="countries_array">   
<item>
    <name>Bahrain</name>
    <code>12345</code>
</item>
<item>
    <name>Bangladesh</name>
    <code>54545</code>
  </item>
<item>
    <name>India</name>
    <code>54455</code>
</item>

</string-array>
</resources>

For example in case of 1 dimensional array we can do it using

getResources().getStringArray(R.array.countries_array);

When the countries_array is like

<resources>
<string-array name="countries_array">   
  <item>Bahrain</item>
  <item>Bangladesh</item>
  <item>India</item>
</string-array>
</resources>

Answer 1

The <string-array> element of a resources file can only be used for single dimension arrays. In other words, everything between <item> and </item> is considered to be a single string.

If you want to store data in the way you describe (effectively pseudo-XML), you'll need to get the items as a single String[] using getStringArray(...) and parse the <name> and <codes> elements yourself.

Personally I'd possibly go with a de-limited format such as...

<item>Bahrain,12345</item>

...then just use split(...).

Alternatively, define each <item> as a JSONObject such as...

<item>{"name":"Bahrain","code":"12345"}</item>